If we’re in a country famed for its gastronomic culture, there was no way we’d pass up an opportunity to learn a little more about some of the most iconic dishes. Japanese food has become exceptionally well-established internationally, with the most famous dishes rising in popularity thanks to Japanese pop culture.
Regardless, it’s interesting to learn more about the background of each of these dishes, some of which have fascinating and unlikely backgrounds. One such food item that we didn’t think we’d get to learn more of is less so a dish than one of the most recognised sauces in Japan – okonomiyaki sauce, most famously the one made by the condiment company Otafuku.
Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), translating to “how you like it, fried”, is also known as a savoury pancake or a Japanese pizza, eaten either as a meal or a snack. There are two main styles that are most commonly known: the Kansai- or Osaka-style, which consists of chopped vegetables and any combination of meat or seafood mixed through a batter, and the Hiroshima-style, which is made up of distinct layers, and often includes noodles and a lot more fillings than the Osaka-style. Okonomiyaki is topped with okonomiyaki sauce, which is a distinct tangy, fruity, savoury sauce, similarly to a sweeter tomato ketchup or a milder barbecue sauce.
Otafuku was originally a company that produced soy sauce and sake. Following World War II, cheap, fast, flour-based foods such as okonomiyaki were popular meals as they provided quick nutrition for a population rebuilding a city decimated by an atomic bomb. The sauce used at the time was Worcestershire sauce, but the company now known as Otafuku played with ingredients, incorporating fruits and vegetables into the Worcestershire sauce, creating a thick, rich, flavourful sauce that didn’t run off the okonomiyaki and much more suited to the Japanese palate.
As we learned, the Otafuku Company offers experiences such as a tour of their factories and a chance to learn how to make okonomiyaki. If we’re to visit the city famous for the dish, then we might as well have ourselves a hands-on meal, rather than just watch the process from afar!
Wood Egg Museum
The Wood Egg Museum is the name of the building of Otafuku Hiroshima’s Head Office, which is a short walking distance from their factory. The building is called such, as the giant wooden structure that you can see immediately as you approach the site resembles a giant egg. The Wood Egg museum conducts free tours of the factory, visits to the interactive museum, and cooking classes for okonomiyaki. If you don’t have the time to visit the site, which is a little bit out of the way of central Hiroshima, there is Okosta, a site at the Hiroshima Station with a huge variety of okonomiyaki-making experiences including Muslim- and vegetarian-friendly sessions, as well as a Wood Place location in Tokyo with a showroom and Kansai-style okonomiyaki classes.
Making a Reservation
All of the experiences need to be reserved beforehand, and this can be done on their website up to 3 months in advance. The factory and museum tours are free, and you only pay for the cooking classes. The classes available at the Wood Egg Museum are as follows:
- You can no longer do Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki classes on the professional hotplate. It’s now only learn to make these on electric griddles. This class is ¥1,000 (US$9.60) per person.
- The professional hotplate classes are used to teach Kansai-style okonomiyaki classes. This only occurs on the 10th of the month, and features special seasonal ingredients. This class is ¥1,500 (US$14.30) per person.
- You will also need to reserve the factory and museum tours. This can be done at the same time as booking the classes.
These courses are subject to change, as the system is completely different to when we went in June of 2019! The courses are also very different for Okosta at Hiroshima Station and Wood Place in Tokyo. You will need to check each of these websites for more details, but they each have reservation forms in English which makes the process very easy. Otherwise, use the browser translating app to assist the process.
Getting to the Wood Egg Museum
The Wood Egg Museum is about 10 minutes’ walk from Inokuchi Station (井口駅), or 20 minutes’ walk from the JR Shin-Inokuchi Station (新井口駅). The distance is flat all the way along, so it’s a nice walk if you’re prepared to spend that amount of time.
The Factory and Museum Tour
We won’t ruin the fun for those who are looking to go. We found that the tours, at least on the day that we visited, were only conducted in Japanese. As is much of the information displayed in the museum. However, there is a video that is played at the end of the session which has English subtitles that generally summarise most of the information relayed during the tours.
Many of the exhibitions are interactive and highly visual as they’re also aimed at children, so it’s easy to grasp some of the information even if you speak little to no Japanese. We were also given a freebie of Otafuku tomato ketchup that we had watched being packaged during our factory visit. The tour ended with some time allocated to the Otafuku gift shop, which has a whole array of Otafuku products including all their variations of okonomiyaki sauce with samples, and hotplate spatulas to make your own okonomiyaki at home, complete with optional engraving.
While it was interesting and a lot of fun for us, it is still very informative. Unless you’re interested in the makings and origin of the sauce and the company and you have some way to understand the hosts as they ran through the tour, you may find that staying at the central Hiroshima Station and taking a cooking class is enough of the okonomiyaki experience.
The Cooking Experience
You’re required to wear an apron to the event. A few people brought their own, but you can also purchase disposable Otafuku aprons onsite for ¥200 (US$1.90). As we went during low tourist season, the class was conducted entirely in Japanese, but they take into consideration that there will be situations where attendees cannot speak Japanese.
We opted for a class that no longer exists – a professional hotplate experience learning to make Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. During our visit, there was a chef who demonstrated each step on 2 different pancakes, and assistants to troubleshoot any messy situations. At the end of the class, you’re given plenty of time to enjoy your pancake with a number of condiments, and then in true Japanese style, we also learned to clean the griddle how the professionals would. It was a lot of fun and totally delicious.
Hiroshima was our first stop during our 7 days with the JR West Sanyo-San’in Pass. We found that the Wood Egg Museum was a great addition to our itinerary as it gave us a very unique experience that ticked all our boxes, and as we could eat one of Hiroshima’s iconic eats, that freed up meals to try some other lesser-known local dishes. Whether you’re in Hiroshima or Tokyo, whether you have time to spare or you’re a gastronome looking for an interactive cooking class to expand your culinary know-how, this is an experience that we would recommend to anyone to give a go.
See Also
Otafuku Company Website (English / Japanese)
Otafuku experiences (English / Japanese)
Hiroshima Head Office – Wood Egg experiences (English / Japanese)
Hiroshima Station – Okosta experiences (English / Japanese)
Tokyo – Wood Place experiences (Japanese only)
Wood Egg Museum
7 Chome-4-5 Shoko Center, Nishi Ward, Hiroshima, 733-0833, Japan
Mon-Fri 10am-3.30pm
Closed weekends
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